Pressing Matters

Fred Vogelstein wanted to be a Moscow bureau chief. He did manage to get to Berlin as a student in the months after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, but he still hasn't been to Moscow. Instead, Fred became one of the most influential technology reporters of his generation, with stints at the Wall Street Journal, Wired, The Information, US News, and Fortune. Today he and fellow tech legend Oh Malik are the Co-Founders and Editors ...

Unlike most of our previous guests, Catherine Sbeglia Nin didn't set out to be a reporter. She was a doctoral candidate in film theory. When realizing she was miserable, she figured she'd find other ways to tell stories after dipping her toes in the journalism waters. RCR Wireless, one of the magazines of record for Telco Wireless and networking, offered her a reporter job in 2019. Within three years, she was managing edi...

It's pretty rare these days to find anyone in tech media who has been at the same outlet for a quarter century. But Patrick Seitz has been covering the fascinating world of tech, finance, and the stock market for exactly that: 25 years at Investors' Business Daily. A Chicago-area native who cut his teeth covering courts and crime, Pat switched to covering tech in Washington DC in the early nineties, and he's never lo...

Michael Krigsman doesn't call himself a journalist. Yes, he has produced 800 podcasts and videos in the past 11 years as the founder and host of CXOTalk, but he doesn't have a journalism degree or any editorial training, and his pieces are a mix of editorial and sponsored. That said, Michael does have an innate sense of story. He's not afraid to challenge a paying client to let him produce a video that's got a n...

At the age of eight, Esther Ajao did something braver than most of us will do in our entire lives. Having spent her early years in her native Nigeria, raised by an extended family of grandparents and uncles, Esther moved across the ocean to Brooklyn to reunite with her mother, who had moved to America when Esther was just six months old. Removed from her home and a big family that helped shield her self-proclaimed introverted perso...

The path Michael Nuñez took to a seemingly straightforward gig – Editorial director at VentureBeat – was anything but direct. He covered the fun side of Hong Kong, the travel beat in Korea, and even wrote for an airline magazine in New York City after various tech writing gigs. He spent two years and change as head of marketing at a VC, but for coming on two years now, Michael has led VentureBeat, one of the most influential outlet...

Hello everyone. We've got a very special episode for you this month as we celebrate the pod's second anniversary. Given that AI is the topic of the decade, not just in tech and journalism, but the whole wide world, we asked two of our favorite guests back to discuss where this is all going. Jennifer Strong of the Shift Podcast, who also was a Pulitzer Fellow for AI accountability. And Connie Guglielmo, the former CNET exe...

In this edition of the Pressing Matters podcast, host Dave Reddy, head of Big Valley Marketing's Media and Influencers Practice, speaks with Jennifer Strong, a seasoned podcaster who began her radio career at 12 in Tennessee. Jennifer's extensive experience includes work with NPR, The Wall Street Journal, and MIT Tech Review. Now at Shift, she produces and hosts podcasts that delve into AI and other emerging technologies,...

Diana Goovaerts initially got into the publishing business. But frustrated by that industry’s speed - or lack thereof - she shifted to the fast-paced world of journalism, first as a local reporter in her native North Jersey and, later, in the past decade, at WirelessWeek, GSMA and now Fierce Network, where she serves as executive editor. We’re all glad she made the change. 

An expert on all things wireless and, more recent...

Next month, Fortune Brainstorm Tech will once again bring together the top thinkers in tech and business in Park City, Utah. And for the first time since 2020, Andrew Nusca will be leading the show as editorial director. He promises the typical knockout conference with big-name keynotes, Olympic-level networking and panels on everything from AI to security to how to communicate with Gen Z. The son of a dance instructor and a nurse ...

Rich Jaroslovsky’s career goal was to be the D.C. correspondent for a major newspaper.

He achieved that - at 22 - for a little outlet called The Wall Street Journal.

He covered Gerald Ford’s doomed re-election campaign in 1976. Five years later, mere hours after President Reagan was shot by would-be assassin John Hinckley, Rich was at the White House, standing a few feet from Secretary of State Al Haig when Haig...

Are you an aspiring reporter looking to get a job at Axios upon graduation? I have three letters for you: UNC, the University of North Carolina. Sam Sabin, this episode’s guest, is the second Axios reporter we've had on the pod, and, like her colleague and previous guest, FinTech reporter Lucinda Shen, she's a Tar Heel. 

Since 2022, Sam has covered cybersecurity for Axios, a job that includes two weekly newslette...

Here’s something a bit random. We’re only midway through our second season on the podcast, and - Ryan Chacon, this episode’s guest - is the second person we’ve had who served as his college soccer team’s captain.

Remember the first? I’ll tell you in a moment.

In the meantime, give it up for the teamwork one learns on the soccer fields, which Ryan said has helped him in his work as co-creator and CMO of IOT for A...

Monica Alleven has been covering the wireless industry since 1995 - a time when the notion of wireless was so limited, almost everyone was still using a landline to connect to the Internet, very few people had a cell phone and no one - of course - had a smartphone, since those were 12 years in the future.

Almost 30 years since she started, Monica is still at it - and incredibly successful, having helmed two of the biggest...

Andy Greenberg is a senior writer for WIRED, where he covers digital security and privacy, freedom of information and the finer points of hacker culture. His latest novel, Tracers In the Dark, is a non-fiction true-crime thriller set in the shadowy realms of cryptocurrency.

On today's pod, he joins Dave to share notes from his journey to the present and the forks in the road that led him to his particular corner of t...

Lori Ann LaRocco hears more than most. As the Senior Editor of Guests at CNBC, she sets up interviews that make news, move markets and forecast the future. When she's not helping to break the news or coordinate on-location productions, she's an author.

Her work includes "Trade War Containers Don't Lie: Navigating the Bluster" and "Dynasties of the Sea: The Untold Stories of the Postwar Shippin...

Alex Konrad is a senior editor at Forbes, covering venture capital and startups. He edits the Midas List and Under 30 for VC. He's interviewed some of the world's most consequential business leaders and innovators. This time, though, he sits across the (virtual) table and answers some questions himself.

As you might surmise, the future is in play in this conversat...

Evan Kirstel is a true B2B and technology influencer with more than 300K social media followers. A prolific content creator, he boasts a network including a who's who of technology leaders, visionaries and pundits.

Hear from the man himself on how he got started in technology, his feelings on the state of the industry and the technology he's keeping tabs on (ahem, AI, of course).

Welcome to Season 2 of ...

Throughout season one of Pressing Matters, we've asked the world’s foremost B2B technology media and influencers one question.

Are you optimistic about the future of journalism?

Indeed, we believe there is much cause for optimism (as did many of our guests). New technology has raised new voices and revealed new avenues of expression. Yet we also see much cause for concern (as did some of our guests). AI is s...